||"She's beautiful he thought...but there was something more than a little unsettling about red eyes."||
A nightmare startled Wanda out of her sleep, and her hands flew to her stomach in some unknown reflex to protect what was hers.
As she sat there, covered in sweat and struggling to breathe, she thought back to what she had dreamt.
She was kneeling in an dark field, her arms heavy but empty, and as she stared down at them, she found that blood was beginning to spread. It traveled up her arms, up her chest, around her shoulders until it was swallowing her whole. She tried to scream but the blood choked her, muffling her voice. All she could do was stare down at herself and cry.
Before she woke, she'd seen a faint silhouette laying across her lap.
Now, with her heart thudding inside of her, Wanda pulled the covers off and walked into the bathroom, squinting as the bright lights overwhelmed her sight. The bulbs they had replaced in the ceiling with the ones she'd shattered were too bright, she thought, but she hadn't complained.
Slowly, Wanda peeled off her clothes and climbed into the shower, soaking in the hot water and trying her best to forget her dream. But it circled around her, urging her to remember it.
The thing was, she didn't want to remember, not this or anything involving pain and death for that matter. What she did want was her family, and a safe home for the future one she was soon to have.
By the time she got out of the shower, the water had run cold, and she was shivering as she put on some fresh clothes and towel dried her hair. All that she could do now was get back in bed and hope her dreams were kind to her and that they'd allow her some rest.
When she was back in bed, she wasn't surprised to see that Nik had appeared in his favorite corner. Since the lights were off, she was only able to see him because of the circular silver lights around her room that turned on after dark. They could pass as stars, and sometimes, she told herself they were.
"You're still trembling," he told her, moving so that he was out of the dark corner and now at the foot of her bed, his pale hands folded in front of him.
"I'll warm up soon enough," she said, wrapping the thick comforter a little bit tighter around herself. "I had a nightmare, Nik. I was so scared that it forced me to wake up."
Nik sat down on her bed and hunched forward. Wanda hated seeing him this way, so feeble and gray. It felt like forever since she'd last seen him as the vibrant boy who had trouble containing his smile.
He didn't smile that often anymore.
"I think..." her voice trailed off, and Nik looked over at her, and maybe it was the way his eyes spoke volumes about a future she was excited for and a past she was running from, like his eyes held the very truth she'd been trying to seek, but she found her voice again, saying, "I think whatever it is my mind is hiding from me, it's going to reveal itself. It's like I can feel it checking the knob, waiting for me to unlock it."
"And will you?"
When she blinked, she found that her eyes had gone hot. "I don't know, Nik," her voice wavered, and she covered her face with her hands.
A cold sensation traveled through her, and she realized that it was Nik trying to grab her hand. When she surrendered to him, he was doing his best to give her his most genuine smile, and though she knew it wasn't, she still loved that he was trying.
"You've come too far to shy away from what you know is right. Your mind is trying to tell you something, and it might not be something you want to hear or even remember but there is no point in forgetting anymore."
